Gold
by ninthsgirl
Summary: The last Time Lord can see emotions as colors - so he tells the bartender.


Time Lords can see colors.

Of course they can see colors with their eyes, or at least I can. You'll have to take my word for it since there is no one else to ask. I'm the only Time Lord left - you are serving this drink to the only Time Lord existing in the universe. Now that I think of it, I could tell you all kinds of crazy things about me and you'd have to believe them because how could you prove me wrong? An unexpected benefit from being the sole survivor of an entire race. Wait, this is not how I wanted to tell this...

Let's try this again - and you could give me a refill as well.

So, the color thing - well, I can see normal colors the normal way, and I can see moods, emotions as colors around people. Not all the time because that would be maddening, like never having a moment's quiet. It's kind of like a switch I can flip in my brain - off, normal, on, a rainbow. It doesn't work in all worlds - places where emotions are controlled or suppressed are pretty much always as they seem. But on other planets, usually younger civilizations, flipping the switch can start quite a show. It comes in handy - easier to spot a lie, can't be tricked by words because the colors won't match them.

No other planet puts on a show like Earth - have you ever been there? Didn't think so - small planet, not real well known yet. Now that place is a stewpot of emotions, off the charts. Flipping the switch there can cause instant sensory overload depending on where and when I am. They have a pretty colorful history, and I'm not being figurative. I can see individual colors and also collective color for large crowds if they're all feeling a similar emotion. The younger you are, the brighter the color. Babies are pink, the old are blue. Anger is red like blood, jealousy is a purple bruise, fear is silver, happiness green, death black. Sometimes, when I'm bored, I like to take the mickey out of a person, yank his chain, you know, and watch his colors change. Immature, I know, but the last Time Lord gets his laughs wherever he can.

I never flip the switch on a battlefield...

After the War, the first time I saw myself in my latest regeneration (don't ask, whole different story) I switched it on and saw what I looked like. Sickly green and black flickering with yellow, like a thundercloud. I flipped it off immediately - Oncoming Storm suddenly seemed like a very appropriate name. I didn't look at myself like that again.

Sorry, didn't mean to phase out on you like that. Thanks for the refill - you read my mind. (you didn't really read my mind, did you? good)

so, after the War I drifted from place to place, spent a lot of time in the Vortex, contemplated the fact that I now existed in my own personal hell. It wasn't pretty - let's just leave it at that. It got better, a little better after a while. I was all over the universe, keeping my mind occupied (not an easy job, let me tell you), staying as manic as possible so I wouldn't have time to think. Saw some pretty amazing things, but my hearts just weren't in the whole exploration-and-save-a-world program anymore. I kept coming back to Earth at different times. I don't know why, didn't want to know or care. When the running didn't work, I checked out the local pubs wherever I was - you have quite a nice selection here, by the way. I can't get drunk - metabolism is too efficient - but if I'm really determined, I can get just pissed enough to forget for awhile. Great customer for you, actually, steady source of money, no messy drunk to clean up after.

That's a pathetic picture! Lonely time traveller, responsible for the deaths of millions, dashing around the universe, irritating people along the way just for the fun of it. I wouldn't want to be around me.

I tried to die. I should have died before, with everyone else. Another little known fact about Time Lords - me - is that I can't commit suicide. Stinks, doesn't it? So instead I went and did everything I could think of to put myself in danger, get myself killed. Failed at that, too. Talk about not being able to catch a break!

Anyway, enough of all that. My sorry life is not the point of this story. Now we get to the good part - no thanks, I'm all set. I don't want to be foggy for this. So one day I'm back on Earth again, killing time, tracking down what turns out to be the Nestene Consciousness (you heard of that? Yes, that was me - well, not all me) and I'm in the basement of this shop when, all of a sudden, a human girl shows up, and I have to save her from a herd of marauding living plastic. Kind of irritated me, told her more that I intended to before I sent her on her way. Didn't think much more about it, but then she kept crossing my path and she was - surprising. Smart. She asked questions, didn't dismiss me out of hand. You should have seen her face when she saw the inside of my ship! But she took it all in stride. I was intrigued, and I hadn't been intrigued in a long time.

Well, I thought she was going to totally muck up the whole situation, but she didn't. She believed me, she saved me when the whole thing looked like it was going to hell. And when the time came to leave, I couldn't say goodbye. I asked her to come with me. I could tell she wanted to, but she had a friend and a mum (the less said about her, the better) that she had to stay for. I left, and I felt like I had been sucker punched. I needed this little human to come with me. The Time Lord and a nineteen year old girl! So I thought of another way to tempt her, came back, and told her about the time travel, and she was hooked!

I don't know why I didn't flip the switch to see her for as long as I did. I think I was afraid she wouldn't match what I imagined her to be. But on our second trip she was dressed up in this period gown, and I just did it. And it was - fantastic! She was gold - not yellow, but real gold - she glowed! I was completely gobsmacked. I blurted out like a schoolboy that she was beautiful, got all embarrassed, flipped the switch back, and backpedaled a bit. But I couldn't forget that color. I'd never seen it before around any living being.

So now I started to play with the switch a lot, usually when we were travelling - down time, you know. She'd be reading or listening to music, and I'd just watch her without letting her see me do it. Didn't want her thinking I was going all pervy on her. Looking at her like that made me feel - peaceful, like I hadn't felt in ages, like somehow her glow was healing me. The world didn't feel so dark or empty anymore.

I had always intended on taking her around a bit and then dropping her home, but I knew that I was the one who was hooked now. I was too selfish to let her go. It would be like ripping out one of my hearts to say goodbye. So we kept travelling, and I made one promise to myself - if I ever saw her gold begin to dim or be contaminated by my storm, I would take her back immediately. I will not allow my - poison to taint her. And, so far, no change.

Wait, she's coming. I can always feel her a moment before she gets in sight. I wish you could see her the way I can. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Rose! Over here!

And the lanky, battle worn man in the battered leather jacket got off his barstool and waved to the pretty blonde girl who had just walked in. The bartender watched as she caught sight of him and waved to him with a wide smile. The man's smile flashed back, chasing away the shadows that made their home in his eyes. If the Doctor had flipped the switch now, he would have seen the golden aura around her concentrate and streak toward him in a bright beam as she reached out to him. He would have seen his own hand as it extended and the matching gold beam that shot out and twisted around hers. And as their hands met and their fingers entwined, he would have seen how that braided beam of gold wound around their hands, binding them together.  



End file.
